Asphodel Meadows
by guineapiggie
Summary: "On a whim, in front of an empty glass of tequila, in a crowded bar with sticky counters, he offers a beautiful woman his life." [PREQUEL TO "ROME'S STILL BURNING; allusions to greek mythology galore; modern AU; organised crime; one-shot; rated for language and violence]


**Asphodel Meadows**

 **DISCLAIMER:** I don't own a thing, everything is with their rightful owners, definitions partially quoted from wikipedia.

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some names you will need (definitions probably complete nonsense since from wikipedia - I know, I know...)

 **Epimetheus** \- God of hindsight  
 **Erebus -** God of darkness or God of shadows  
 **Iapetus -** God of mortality

 **Asphodel meadows -** a place for ordinary or indifferent souls who did not commit any significant crimes, but who also did not achieve any greatness or recognition that would warrant them being admitted to the Elysian Fields. It was where mortals who did not belong anywhere else in the Underworld were sent.

 **Acheron** \- river in the underworld, "river of woe" or "river of pain", crossed by Charon the ferryman  
 **Phlegethon** \- river in the underworld, "stream of fire"  
 **Lethe** \- river in the underworld, "all those who drank from it experienced compete forgetfulness"

* * *

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.

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He is reading while he waits. Not because he wants to – hell, that book has been sitting on his shelf, hidden behind Mateo's, ever since Bodhi gave it to him for Christmas two years ago, and he's never once opened it. He doesn't even believe in his parent's God, why would he care to read up on the gods of a culture long since dead and gone?

No, he's reading a book in a shabby restaurant because he needs to be recognised, and he's not about to give out photographs. So instead, he reads a book.

And he would love to say he hates it, that it bores him as much as he's expected it to, but – there is a drawing on the cover of it, depicting what he has just learned is a stream called Styx and a dark figure steering a battered boat over the black water, and there is something about that image that makes him shudder with what a more superstitious man might call premonition.

A voice startles him away from the rivers of the underworld, and his eyes flicker up at the short brunette girl he remembers from the mug shots.

"Are you the one w-" Her voice fades to nothing, when she realises a pact with the police isn't exactly a good idea to discuss in public, and Cassian gives his wine a humourless smile.

"Well, you better hope so, because if not, I'd think you were really fucking desperate."

She returns his wry smile, and he thinks she could be pretty, if she was really smiling. "Great, a funny one. Just what I needed."

He sighs and nods to the empty seat across the table. "Sit."

She follows his invitation with the face of a girl called to the principal's office. This girl looks like Trouble, capital letter very much required, and he thinks they might as well have thrown him a grenade and kept the pin. Something about this girl screams _I will get you killed. I'll get us both killed._

"Drink?" he asks and motions to the wine bottle on the table, and she just shrugs.

"Yeah. Why not."

He fills a glass and pushes it across the table. "Well then, Jyn –"

"They know me as Lyra here," she cuts him off blandly. He takes that in and nods.

"Your mother's name."

Her eyes narrow. "That's creepy."

Again, he shrugs. "I read your file. What did you expect?"

Something pulls at the corners of her mouth, and her chin lifts. "So, you get a whole file, and I just get _our guy will wear a watch on his right wrist and read a book on Greek mythology_?"

"Mateo García," he offers, the name rolls off his tongue more easily than his real one these days, and the girl twitches her head, glowering at him over her wine glass.

"That your real name?"

He scoffs. "Let's be clear about a few things, _Lyra._ There are a few topics I will not let you talk about, you get that? You ask me questions, I'll lie, you do it where others can hear, I'll shut you up. _I_ will contact _you_ , without exception. Those are my conditions."

She merely raises a brow at that. "Fine, _Mateo._ " She messes up the pronunciation, probably on purpose, and he tries not to cringe at that. "I can get you killed, fuck up the whole damn thing you got going, so don't talk down to me. Don't assume I'll be grateful just because –"

"Stop. That's one of the topics," he says in a level tone, not moving a muscle.

"I'm helping you, so try not to be a dick," she gives back in the same tone. "Can you get me a gun?"

"What?"

"A gun. I need one." He raises a brow and she adds with a slight mocking smile: "What? I live in a dangerous neighbourhood now."

He has a feeling she has never lived in any other kind of neighbourhood.

"No, I can't."

Her eyes – they're green, he notes, bright and hard and green – flicker down his torso for a moment, then she says: "You have one, don't you? Doesn't seem fair. Trust goes both ways."

Logic says she _would_ shoot him and run, however his head tells him she wouldn't for some reason. (Fine, maybe just because he's lonely and tired and she's pretty and smart and something about her eyes makes his skin tingle).

But he's lived in this world far too long to listen to hunches, so he just sighs and says: "I don't peddle weapons, Lyra. You need one, I'm sure you'll find another way. Anything else?"

She sips at her wine, and he's half impressed she doesn't spit it out – it's the worst they have, he chose it for that reason.

"Not for now. So, what do you want from me?"

"Galen Erso knows something about... my employers, something pivotal. I need him, and you'll help me."

"I haven't seen him in years."

"I said _I need him_ , not _I need to find him,_ Lyra. It's just that he will not talk to one of Krennic's men, but he will talk to you."

"I'm the bait, then?"

"He's supposed to testify, that's all. We'll even keep him safe after, and you too, if you play nice."

"Yeah, great. Not sure I wanna spend the rest of my life around the likes of you, frankly."

He shrugs. "Long as you do it, I don't care why."

(Her eyes watch him, hard and bright and green, and suddenly he has a feeling that it won't be long before he _does_ care.)

A smile twitches around her lips like she's seen him cave in, and his eyes fall onto Bodhi's book and again, something about the drawing on the cover makes him shudder.

"Before we start, I'll go buy us a better drink, if you don't mind," she says and gets up, leaving him to stare after her with a taste of something on his tongue that certainly isn't the wine.

.

* * *

.

It's too fucking dark in this bar, he thinks, a little dazed, and stares into his drink – it's _tequila_ , damn it, how long since he's had tequila?

And he thinks he's drinking too much these days, and it makes him careless.

(That is a lie. He's careless, yes, but it's not the liquor coursing through his blood. It's bright hard green eyes, swift thieving hands tapping soft rhythms against the counter, teeth scraping red lipstick off her lower lip as she mulls her words over before she says them.)

"What does Mateo García do for fun?"

"What?" he asks blearily, looking up from his glass.

"I've never seen you laugh. There must be something to make you laugh, right? What do you do for fun?"

He stares at her blankly, and she looks back, calm, steady; bright hard green eyes.

The saddest thing is, he's honestly trying, but nothing comes to mind.

He knows the answers he should give, knows he should do what he does best – keep to the shadows. Crawl as deep into his disguise as he can and hide that vulnerable part of himself from the world, hide it in the darkness he's so used to, where it is (relatively) safe.

( _Erebus,_ he thinks.)

But the thing is, he has clearly been doing that for too long.

He knows Mateo likes to play poker, and loves old Science Fiction movies and shit about history (no, seriously – his shelves creak and ache under the weight of the history books). He could off the top of his head name at least ten bands that Mateo has stacked next to a run-down CD player (yes, CDs, because he's a fossil who still uses them), could hum the songs to anyone who'd ask.

He knows he shouldn't _tell_ anyone, but with a falling sensation he realises he doesn't even _know_ what _Cassian_ does for fun.

(He remembers he used to kick a dirty ball around the streets with Marco, used to read threadbare novels, used to rub the skin on his fingertips sore against the strings of his mother's old guitar; until that life ended with splatters of blood on dusty asphalt.  
He remembers he used to get drunk enough to dance, just terrible enough to make girls laugh and just good enough to not have to talk to them instead. He doesn't really remember how that life ended, just knows that at some point it did.)

So, instead of answering, he takes another sip from his glass, and shrugs. "I don't know."

She sighs. "You know what, Mateo? _You're_ certainly not what anyone does for fun."

He raises a brow at her feeble insult, downs the rest of the tequila, thinks she's probably right.

Then – and this might _actually_ be the alcohol, or it might not – he makes a decision. He could tell himself he needs to gain his contact's trust and that he has to offer something in return, but he doesn't bother. He's an excellent liar, but he has a hard time lying to himself.

He sets the glass down, catches her eyes, bright green hard eyes, and offers two little words.

(Stupid. So fucking stupid.)

( _Epimetheus_ , he thinks.)

Later he will wonder what he was _thinking_ \- of all the things he could have said, he had to give her those? They're his _life,_ these two words, and that is not an exaggeration, that is the truth.  
On a whim, in front of an empty glass of tequila, in a crowded bar with sticky counters, he offers a beautiful woman his life.

( _Iapetus_ , he thinks, and that is almost funny, because his bones are singing with _life,_ like they do facing the barrel of a gun.)

"Cassian Andor," he says, and she doesn't ask what that means.

She smiles, and he hears her voice, ages and ages ago (just weeks, really, maybe two months; life goes by so fast and so slow for him and he has watches with dates to tether him, but he forgets to look down sometimes).

 _Trust goes both ways._

 _._

 _._

* * *

 _._

.

He turns up in that bar more often than he should. Mateo doesn't have any excuse to go there – they play jazz and clichéd Italian music and the tables are sticky and the food is decent at best and the wine is horrible.

Cassian doesn't have any excuse to go there, either, truth be told – the music reminds him of his mother, he's developing a serious aversion against pasta, and the wine is _horrible._

(It's her; it's their waitress who hardly smiles at any guest but who smiles at him, and they both know she's all the reason he keeps ending up there, and they both know he shouldn't come.)

He shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't, but his resolve can't always be flawless and he feels like he doesn't wake these days until he's had four espressos and a look from those green eyes, and so he comes anyway.

(He should have dropped her long ago. She has played her part, they got to Galen Erso [who of course got shot _before_ he got into witness protection, Cassian tried to prevent it even though he shouldn't have, and Galen had died anyway]. Jyn Erso is officially out of the equation.)

(She should have left this place long ago. She has done her bit, earned her freedom; her father is dead [she has learned not to blame Cassian for that even though she should]. She officially doesn't owe Cassian Andor a damn thing.)

But she stays, and he keeps dragging his tired feet over the threshold of _Antonio's._

(They will get each other killed.)

Cassian stares into his espresso and thinks about the book he was reading the day he met her. _Five rivers encircle the underworld,_ he remembers, and thinks he's spent his whole damn life on their banks, and now she will, too – just because some sorry fool spends his nights drinking sour coffee and bitter wine and staring after her.

 _(Fun date idea: take your date to a picnic on the banks of the Phlegethon. Save yourself the trouble of lighting a camp fire.)_

He grimaces and knocks back the whole cup, burning his tongue, and wonders idly if he's always been so damn cynical.

.

.

The night they end up in an empty street underneath a broken street light and his fingers weave through her tangled hair and her nails dig into the skin of his neck and her hands crumble his collar, he thinks of the loose change in her pocket, thinks _a coin for the ferryman._

He kisses the woman who makes his heart ache and flutter and trip and swell, and thinks of Charon rowing the dead across a deadly calm dark river, and shudders with cold.

He pulls her closer, starved for touch, for warmth, for forgiveness –

He kisses the woman he would die for, trembling with regret because _he will._ And it won't save her.

(Cassian has seen this a million times. Someday, someone will find out that Mateo García has never existed – someone usually does, at some point – and that someone will try to use him, ask him to give up others. He will refuse. They will put a gun to her head because _someone always knows,_ and he will beg and cry and not give up a single cop, because he can't, because this is bigger than them, bigger even than _her_ , and in the end, their blood will mingle on dusty concrete, and maybe a merciful brash of summer rain will wash it away before it dries.)

Jyn Erso kisses him, and he forgets the tightness in his throat and the fear in his veins and his tired head and his heavy heart and the ferry ride across the Acheron.

.

Later that night, he comes to the bitter conclusion that he will never bring himself to stay away now, because it's far too sweet a feeling (and if it doesn't matter either way, he might as well give in to this blissful oblivion).

Lethe, he thinks with a cynical little smile and watches her still sleeping form, is the river he doesn't really mind drowning in.

.

* * *

.

He drowns in the others too sometimes, alone in the dark some nights he's fourteen again and swallowed by the dark waters -

It happens the third time he's fallen asleep in her bed, the second time he's trying to erase a stray word from his mind that keeps flaring up at the smell of her sheets and her hair and the clothes that scatter over her dirty floor ( _home_ ), the first time he hasn't even tried to kid himself into believing he will get up again and leave before the morning.

He sleeps deeply enough this time, apparently, to dream.

 _(It's the stench that makes it real, the faint smell of burned flesh that comes from the friction of the bullet against the muscles, the sudden warm taste of metal as the blood gushes into the dust. It looks almost like raindrops in the sand, but it doesn't have that smell, that wonderful serene smell of summer rain in the dust that he misses so much sometimes.)_

 _And then he's back in that alley, trying to whisper and failing, his voice tripping, quivering, breaking – "_ No, Marco, get back, get back, stay out of this" _\- not caring that the damn cops turn to look at him now, guns raised, but Marco doesn't hear him and he panics. And it's the worst time in his life to ever slip into the wrong language but he's so afraid that he's four again and the words that come over his lips are gibberish to the gringos and he raises his hands over his head and forgets what they are holding –_

"¡No le hagas daño! ¡No disparen! ¡Es sólo un niño, tiene seis años, es sólo un niño! Por favor no –"

 _But halfway through his shouting, Marco jumps off the fence, hits the ground hard, and three or so of the cops whip around and –_

 _"_ No, por favor no, NO!"

 _The one good thing that comes out of the shock is that Cassian drops the gun in his hand._

 _He's screaming so loudly now he feels like his ears might burst and he's not even sure what he's saying, but he sees it, sees the metal pounding through the small body, and it's not the first time he smells it and not the first time he watches black splatters rain down on the pavement but it's the first time he realises how it should smell like dust after rain but it doesn't._

 _._

Hands grip his shoulder and shake, and his body tenses and he tries to shrug them off, and a voice cuts through the fog but he can't really hear, can't understand...

"Hey, wake up, damn it, stop screaming! Stop, it's me, _hey –"_

He comes to, more or less, stares blearily into a pale, small face until suddenly it blurs with tears. He can't stop them, though he tries, and instead, a few more bits of Spanish fall from his lips, curses mostly. Jyn's hands grip his shoulders even tighter.

"Hey. Hey, you're okay, alright? You're okay. You're safe."

He's not sure what ends it, her gentle voice or her empty words, but it stops and he coughs up something somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

"Shit, I haven't been _safe_ in at least five years."

For a while, she stares down at him, pale face, tired big green eyes, then she nods. "Okay. But I'm not gonna hurt you."

"I know." He's shocked himself with how much conviction those words come out. He really does, he shouldn't, but he doesn't think she would hurt him. At some point – no, not at _some_ point; two nights before her father died, in front of an empty glass – he put everything he had in her hands.

He _trusts_ her. It's a basic mistake to make, but he thinks he's probably just too old or too tired or too bitter to care anymore, or maybe his unwavering faith in their cause is fading.

"It wasn't – I – I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm sorry, I'm sorry… it's bad memories is all, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I get it." And with that, to his immense surprise, she curls her left hand around his neck, right where his pulse flutters through his skin, and rests her head on his shoulder.

"Just sleep. Just sleep."

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 _Find the (better?) sequel to this on my profile under the title "Rome's Still Burning"_

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 ** _Please take a moment to review._**


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